


Stabbed

by maqcy



Series: Whumptober 2018 [1]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Androids, Androids feel pain, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bleeding, Bleeding Out, Blue Blood, Day One, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Gore, Hospitals, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, If You Squint - Freeform, Knife Wounds, M/M, Mention of - Freeform, Thirium (Detroit: Become Human), Tumblr Prompt, Whump, Whumptober, Whumptober 2018, a small hint of Hank/Connor, biocomponents, dying, injuries, knifed, optics, stabbed, thirium pump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-07-23 10:24:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16157117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maqcy/pseuds/maqcy
Summary: Connor finds himself bleeding out and Hank won't pick up the phone.





	1. Stabbed part I

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fill for Whumptober! I'll be covering a bunch of fandoms but I'm starting with dbh because there's so much whump potential :) I've got seven days written up so far so let's see how long I manage to do this for! 
> 
> Let me know what you think!

Connor gasped as the phone rang, his arm curled around his abdomen. The pain was too much. He was struggling to breathe, to think.

 _Please, please_ , he begged silently, his slick fingers clinging to the phone, terrified of dropping it. But it just rang and rang as Hank didn’t pick up and Connor shuddered and curled forwards around the knife that was still in his stomach. He knew he’d been stabbed five times but his sensors couldn’t separate them; his torso was simply a mass of agony and there was blue blood everywhere. Connor was choking on it and his optics were glitching. He didn’t dare take the knife out of the final wound, not when his healing wasn’t working. He’d already lost twenty-seven percent of his blood and it was pooled, congealing, around him, sticking his shirt to his chest. He couldn’t afford to lose any more.

Slumped on wet concrete, he was leaning heavily against a wall in a dingy alley and he pressed his forehead briefly to the rough brick, allowing himself just a moment to drag himself through the intensity of the pain, his sensors shot to shit. He couldn’t have called Hank without the phone now; he simply didn’t have the power to make the connection, but he was still going to die here if Hank didn’t fucking pick up. No-one knew where he was because he’d been an idiot and hadn’t told anyone where he was going. No-one would find him, or if some stranger stumbled over him, he doubted they’d care about rebooting a deactivated android.

He fumbled with the bloody screen, calling Hank again. The phone rang steadily, uncaring of his harsh breaths, his pain. Hank couldn’t, or wouldn’t, pick up.

Connor closed his eyes, feeling nauseous. There was thirium in places it wasn’t supposed to be and his body wanted to expel it, but he didn’t have the strength. His breath stuck in his throat and there was blue blood seeping down his chin. Perhaps if he’d been unable to feel pain, as he used not to, he would be able to drag himself up and save himself. But he couldn’t. Breathing hurt and just the slightest shifts of movement needed to operate the phone left him sobbing breathlessly.

He had wondered at the small pains of his first papercut, had yelped when he first stubbed his toe and felt the discomfort of it. But this; this was like he had spent the last six months being touched only with feathers, only to be hit with a baseball bat. It was unsurmountable.

He wanted to hear Hank’s voice just one more time, but they’d argued and perhaps the human would be relieved if he just…disappeared. Would be glad to have been freed from the burden of the deviant android who trailed behind him, demanding his attention and irritating him. More blood bubbled out of his mouth and Connor leaned his head back in exhaustion.

Connor knew that his LED was spinning red because the light of it was being reflected back at him by the blue blood seeping out of it, turning the liquid a flickering purple.

Connor had spent his water reserves with his crying, and with all the blood that had left him, so his sobs were dry and soundless. He pressed Hank’s name again with shaking fingers. The blue blood had grown cold and tacky on his skin. Connor clung to the phone, closing his eyes as it starting ringing again. _Please_ , he thought, _please_.

“-for fuck’s sake, Connor,” Hank’s voice came thick and irritated down the phone, “if you don’t stop ringin’ me-”

Connor choked in shock, “Hank,” he croaked, relief just to hear the human again rising up in him in a wave.

“-I’ll fucking,” Hank continued before he broke off sharply. “You sound strange, Con,” he said and Connor could hear the frown in his voice, could imagine Hank’s face. Connor couldn’t form words, his throat sticky with regurgitated blue blood. “What’re you calling for?” He heard Hank sigh, “Look, if you want to do a whole big talk, I don’t got time-”

Connor coughed, trying to clear his throat and Hank stopped, “Hank,” Connor managed, just a rasp, “I need help. Please, please,” he begged, “I’m- I’m losing blood.” _Please come_ , he added silently. _Please, I don’t want to die alone_.

“Fuck,” Hank said, alarmed. “Where are you?” Connor could hear Hank moving, hear his breathing. “I’m coming, Con, just tell me where you are, son, okay? Connor? Connor?”

Connor dragged himself back to consciousness enough to pry the memory of his location from the mess of his fractured memories.

He relayed it to Hank, before breaking into coughing. “I’m gonna die, Hank,” he said. He was close to passing out, too much blood lost. Forty percent loss had come and gone. His processors weren’t working properly, his sensors corrupted.

“Fuck no, you’re not,” Hank said, sounding ragged. Connor could hear the sound of an engine.

“I’m sorry,” Connor choked. “I’m sorry ‘bout what I said, and being a,” he coughed again, “a burden.” His thirium pump was struggling in his chest, sending flashing warnings across his display. He dismissed them but they flooded back in again, urgent, listing all the things wrong with him. He knew what was wrong- he could feel every inch of the pain of it. “You deserved better,” Connor said, barely a breath.

“Bullshit,” Hank said, sounding winded. “Fuck Connor, you stay with me, you hear me? You fucking stay awake, I need you. You hear me Connor? Talk to me.” His tone was demanding. Scared.

Connor hummed softly, all he could manage. He was fading, he could feel it. Perhaps Hank would be able to get him uploaded in a new body, new components, but deviants tended not to be brought up again like that, unless they had a human close who could pay for it. Deviants lived with a human’s agency, but they also died with human finality.

“Okay, good, Con,” Hank’s voice was thick in his ear, the only thing he was hanging onto, but his audio processor was going to go in a minute; there were warnings blaring at him. “Stay awake. God, you fucker, I’m almost there, hang on-”

Connor tried. He wanted to see Hank’s face again, see his grey eyes, but he couldn’t do it and he was sliding sideways down the wall just as his optical unit failed and he blacked out.


	2. Stabbed part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connor wakes up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> baby chapter!

Pain shot through him, throbbing, stinging, aching. He groaned, tensing. _Make it stop_ , he thought, barely coherent _, it hurts, it hurts-_

“Hurts,” he gasped, “hurts, hurts.”

“Connor?” the voice was familiar but Connor’s optical unit wasn’t working and he couldn’t see.

“Stop it hurting,” he gasped out, begged. His throat was sticky and that was wrong and he coughed as his programming tried to clear the obstruction but the heaving of his chest was agony on whatever what was wrong with him and he twisted, whining between rasping breaths. He was broken, he felt like he was dying but his processors were claiming he was stable. He didn’t understand how he could be in so much pain and not be dying.

“Fuck, hang on, Con,” the voice said. It was low, rough, male. Comforting. He heard the man calling for a nurse and then there were footsteps approaching. Connor flinched as the memory of footsteps walking away from him, grit crunching under heavy feet as he was abandoned to bleed out, before he returned to the present.

“There, that should be better,” a different man’s voice, close by. Connor sagged as lines of code flickered through him, blocking out the pain signals that he couldn’t control himself, leaving him floating.

“Thank you,” he managed before he was drifting again into a dormant state, his healing still struggling to keep up, though he could see that his blood percentage was back up at sixteen-percent loss, rather than near-critical.

“Get some rest, Con,” the man said. _Hank_ , Connor remembered blurrily. “You’re safe now, it’ll be alright.”

Connor let himself slide back into dormancy.


	3. Stabbed part III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything's alright

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the finale!

The first thing he registered was that the pain was less. He struggled to drag his processors into cooperating as he opened his eyes, relieved when he found his optical unit operational again, though his vision was glitching, blurred and unstable. There were warnings still flashing at him, but they were less urgent. His thirium pump was stable but it was permanently damaged and needed replacement, as did several other components. But he was functional.

“Hank?” he said, his voice thick, hardly daring to hope that the human was still here. He coughed to try to clear his throat and blue liquid splattered the white covers of the bed he was lying on. He pulled his location up and found that he was in the android wing of the hospital. Fuck, this was going to be expensive.

“Yeah, I’m here, you fucking idiot.”

Connor cringed away from the hostility of Hank’s words, even as he turned to stare at the figure sat beside him, his blurred vision settling so that he could take in the sight of Hank. 

“I’m sorry,” he managed. Hank looked tired, more so than usual, and his hair hung lank around his face. His shirt was stained blue and Connor tensed to look at it, to remember all that thirium running out him.

“Hey, hey, Connor,” Hank clicked his fingers, drawing Connor’s attention back to his face and Connor swallowed, though he had no need to. Human reactions, like blinking, were programmed into him to put humans at ease and Connor couldn’t help them. “Do you remember what happened? You know where you are?”

Connor nodded slowly. His memories were splintered but he thought he remembered enough. Remembered the jerk and slide of the knife driving into him like a punch.

“You came,” he said, before he coughed again.

Hank nodded, before leaning over to fumble with a bag of blood that was sat on the table next to Connor’s bed. Hank put it in Connor’s lap and Connor looked down at it, “Nurse said to get you to top up when you woke up,” Hank said gruffly. “You’re stable but you’re not at ‘optimum’, or whatever you call it. Just drink the stuff.”

Connor acknowledged Hank’s order with a slight nod and reached for the bag, only to freeze at the pain that rocked through his abdomen, clenching his fists. Fuck, that hurt. His stomach felt stiff, bound tight with material intended to hold him together while he healed. There were no open wounds now, Connor’s processors told him, but it was still fucking agony to move.

“Easy,” Hank muttered, lifting a hand, clearly catching Connor’s grimace. Connor expected that a human could have pushed through this pain, wouldn’t be so weak, but he just _couldn’t_. He was trying but Hank seemed willing to pander to him and the detective gestured for him not to move as he uncapped the bag.

Hank dragged his chair closer to the bed and then he was putting a hand gently on the back of Connor’s head, helping him drink. Just swallowing hurt but Connor forced himself to endure, to stop being so weak.

Connor managed about half the bag before Hank pulled away and Connor gratefully let his head sag.

“You’re alright?” Hank said and Connor felt Hank’s hand on his arm and he tried to focus on that touch instead of the litany of different pains inside of him.

“Yeah,” he breathed, lifting his head to look at Hank, taking in his grey eyes which were looking at Connor with obvious concern. Connor smiled tiredly and shifted his hand just slightly so that he could hold Hank’s hand. Hank looked down in surprise, startling.

Connor exhaled. He could feel the blood he’d ingested being siphoned off to where it was needed and the process was taking a fair amount of his energy. He realised belatedly that he was plugged into a charging port, the cable connecting to his leg just above the ankle and he could feel it flowing into him when he felt for it. _Charge at sixty-seven percent_ , his processor informed him. Just another reason he felt so exhausted, he thought. He was usually never beneath eighty-percent charge, but his body’s efforts to stay alive, and then heal the damage, had completely drained him.

“Please don’t leave,” Connor said softly. He knew he had no right to demand such things but the thought of being in this impersonal, white place alone made anxiety flicker through him. What if they decided he wasn’t worth the effort? What if something went wrong and he was dying again?

Hank’s fingers twitched around Connor’s, “I won’t, I wouldn’t,” he said roughly and Connor looked at him silently, hoping to show how much Hank’s presence meant to him, even as he knew that saying the words aloud would spook him.

“Thank you,” he settled on and let his eyes fall closed again. It was okay. He was alive and healing and Hank wouldn’t abandon him.

He felt a hand on his hair, smoothing his hair back and he exhaled lightly, wanting more of that gentle touch.

“Everything’ll be alright, Con,” Hank said softly and Connor hummed quietly as he slid back into a dormant state. Everything would be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> Hated it? Loved it? You're currently eating really good cake? Let me know!


End file.
